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How's its library management? Last time I tried Kicad it was impressively bad. There are other options which may be of interest. Altium have one, I think it's

How's its library management? Last time I tried Kicad it was impressively bad. There are other options which may be of interest. Altium have one, I think it's called circuit maker, and digi-key have schemeit. Its hard to try new things when you have access to a professional package and library. I'd really like to try something free but the motivation has been a challenge.

sokoloff 9y ago
For me, doing little blinky things and other small projects, the library management was "good enough for me to not notice", but I've also never used Altium. I didn't like my first install as it required me to be on the internet for library parts. On a later install I found the option to have them locally and that works better for doing layouts on airplane trips. I tried Eagle a few years ago enough to make a couple designs, but never got proficient at it, just "passable". I found KiCAD easier than Eagle, but it was also several years later and my second such package, so I'm sure just being deeper in the hobby was a big part of that ease.
amaterasu 9y ago
Depends what you're used to. The library management is still split between footprint and symbol (more like old Protel) with links made between the two using an external tool. IMO the PCB layout makes up for the extra messing around (when compared to Eagle's, which is the worst I've used).
Animats 9y ago
How's its library management? Last time I tried Kicad it was impressively bad. Yes, KiCAD, for some reason, has a GUI for library management which is both nonstandard and confusing. The schematic symbol library manager and footprint library manager have similar GUIs but behave quite differently. Schematic editing isn't bad, although it has the worst approach to wire junctions ever seen in a schematic editor. The dot where wires connect is an entity separate from the wires, and can be omitted or moved, with negative effects on the netlist. Layout is OK, but, as mentioned, the footprint library isn't very good. Expect to spend time looking at manufacturer data sheets and drawing footprints to match. There's an autorouter, but due to some political problem you have to download it from another site and rename it. The autorouter and the design rule checker don't quite agree on some tight clearances, which can be a problem. It's open source, and widely used, so you know it's not going away.
- taneq 9y ago
  > The schematic symbol library manager and footprint library manager have similar GUIs but behave quite differently. Just to expand on this, KiCad is an abomination stitched together from the corpses of about six different programs. There are four different graphical editors (schematic part, schematic, pcb footprint, pcb layout) which look somewhat similar but have notably different user interface conventions for selecting, moving, copying and deleting objects, making it frustrating to switch between them. To make it even better, the PCB layout program has three different options for the "canvas" (ie. the layout area) which again have different interface conventions, and additionally some features are only available in some canvases and will simply fail to work if another canvas is selected. These programs communicate via export/import functions instead of being properly integrated so the process to add a component to a circuit board involves five different programs and four export steps. You also can't back-annotate any changes at the PCB level back to the schematic (or at least, it's a royal pain to do so.) Once you get your workflow going and you've pushed past the worst of the confusion, it works just well enough that it's easier to put up with the pain for now and allow your resentment to simmer than it is to figure out how to build the damn thing so you can fix it yourself. (For comparison, I used EAGLE back in 2004 or so, and I thought it was pretty good. I'm not sure what they've done to it since then to garner such animosity.)
Kliment 9y ago
Here's a video I made for a Kicad workshop, and the description links to a sample project, so you can try it out and follow along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQMEROD6Vzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQMEROD6Vzc
metaphor 9y ago
> ...digi-key have schemeit. Last time I checked, Scheme-it was basic web-based schematic capture, not layout.

sokoloff 9y ago

For me, doing little blinky things and other small projects, the library management was "good enough for me to not notice", but I've also never used Altium. I didn't like my first install as it required me to be on the internet for library parts. On a later install I found the option to have them locally and that works better for doing layouts on airplane trips. I tried Eagle a few years ago enough to make a couple designs, but never got proficient at it, just "passable". I found KiCAD easier than Eagle, but it was also several years later and my second such package, so I'm sure just being deeper in the hobby was a big part of that ease.

amaterasu 9y ago

Depends what you're used to. The library management is still split between footprint and symbol (more like old Protel) with links made between the two using an external tool. IMO the PCB layout makes up for the extra messing around (when compared to Eagle's, which is the worst I've used).

Animats 9y ago

How's its library management? Last time I tried Kicad it was impressively bad. Yes, KiCAD, for some reason, has a GUI for library management which is both nonstandard and confusing. The schematic symbol library manager and footprint library manager have similar GUIs but behave quite differently. Schematic editing isn't bad, although it has the worst approach to wire junctions ever seen in a schematic editor. The dot where wires connect is an entity separate from the wires, and can be omitted or moved, with negative effects on the netlist. Layout is OK, but, as mentioned, the footprint library isn't very good. Expect to spend time looking at manufacturer data sheets and drawing footprints to match. There's an autorouter, but due to some political problem you have to download it from another site and rename it. The autorouter and the design rule checker don't quite agree on some tight clearances, which can be a problem. It's open source, and widely used, so you know it's not going away.

taneq 9y ago
> The schematic symbol library manager and footprint library manager have similar GUIs but behave quite differently. Just to expand on this, KiCad is an abomination stitched together from the corpses of about six different programs. There are four different graphical editors (schematic part, schematic, pcb footprint, pcb layout) which look somewhat similar but have notably different user interface conventions for selecting, moving, copying and deleting objects, making it frustrating to switch between them. To make it even better, the PCB layout program has three different options for the "canvas" (ie. the layout area) which again have different interface conventions, and additionally some features are only available in some canvases and will simply fail to work if another canvas is selected. These programs communicate via export/import functions instead of being properly integrated so the process to add a component to a circuit board involves five different programs and four export steps. You also can't back-annotate any changes at the PCB level back to the schematic (or at least, it's a royal pain to do so.) Once you get your workflow going and you've pushed past the worst of the confusion, it works just well enough that it's easier to put up with the pain for now and allow your resentment to simmer than it is to figure out how to build the damn thing so you can fix it yourself. (For comparison, I used EAGLE back in 2004 or so, and I thought it was pretty good. I'm not sure what they've done to it since then to garner such animosity.)

Kliment 9y ago

Here's a video I made for a Kicad workshop, and the description links to a sample project, so you can try it out and follow along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQMEROD6Vzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQMEROD6Vzc

metaphor 9y ago

> ...digi-key have schemeit. Last time I checked, Scheme-it was basic web-based schematic capture, not layout.